Updating the Colorado Interlibrary Loan Best Practices

Colorado’s Interlibrary Loan Best Practices (developed in 2004 and revised in 2015) are in need of an update to fix basic things like dead links, but more importantly, to account for how the resource sharing environment has changed in the past 10 years. Because this document belongs to all Colorado libraries, we need your input in order to craft the 2025 edition! 

To get started, we completed an analysis of best practices that have been recently adopted by other states, covering a variety of resource sharing environments (some similar to Colorado, and some very different). In doing that, we identified gaps and areas that our current best practices don’t address. We revised and “standardized” some language for common practices, added context about Colorado’s resource sharing environment to the preamble, and removed dated content. We also fixed dead links and added links to additional resource sharing resources.

In terms of next steps, if you would like to provide feedback:

1. Access the updated Colorado Interlibrary Loan Best Practices draft document between April 18 – May 30.
   1. Formatting note: Highlighted items represent guidelines that were present in the 2015 document, and we propose removing the item that has been struck through. 
2. Review sections that are of interest to you, or align with your area of expertise.
3. Use this Public Comment Form to share your input.

You are welcome to share the draft standards and feedback link with others – input is welcome from all!

The timeline for evaluating, and incorporating your feedback is not established yet, but we will be providing updates along the way.

If you have questions about the Colorado Interlibrary Loan Best Practices, the updates, the revision process, or the feedback form, please contact Marisa Wood via email at wood_m@cde.state.co.us or by phone at (303)-351-2338.